"I can't. I've got a class to teach."
"When's it start?"
"Mid-August. I need time to prep for it, though. Twenty pieces to read and critique."
"So have them sent here."
It was very tempting. Especially when he was stroking the pulsepoint on her wrist like that. "And maybe I think better when I'm not being pressured?"
He lifted her hand to his mouth, turning it around to kiss the inside of her wrist. "Is that what I'm doing? Pressuring you? And don't even think about bringin' the word convenient into this conversation—" he leaned across the corner of the table, his breath in her ear making her shiver "—because, honey, I have already been down that road with my daughter and have no wish to make a return trip." He began trailing a series of gentle kisses down the side of her neck. "There is nothing the least bit convenient about you, lady." With his free hand, he cupped her jaw, his mouth now a breath away from hers. "And I've never been so glad to be inconvenienced in my entire life."
"You're not making this easy."
His mouth whispered over hers. "That was the idea." He got up, pulling her to her feet at the same time and leading her to the stairs. "If I've only got three days to change your mind, I'd best be getting to it, hadn't I?"
* * *
"So," Libby said, "what do you think is going on between them?"
Keeping one eye on Jenna across the bookstore, Blair shifted the cell phone to her other ear. There'd been like, a zillion people asking her aunt to sign books, but no sign of panic that Blair could tell. "I don't know exactly, but—" she lowered her voice "—she's got 'that look.' You know—the morning-after look we were talking about?"
Libby gasped. "Really?"
"Yeah. She's been giggling a lot, too." She shifted in her new shoes, these really cool platforms she'd begged Jenna to buy for her.
"But this could be so cool! I mean, if they get married and stuff, you'd move here, right?"
Blair felt her forehead pinch. She hadn't thought about that. Well, she had, just not in any kind of serious way. She sure couldn't see her father living in D.C. But that would suck, giving up all her friends. Libby was okay, it wasn't that, it was just…
"I don't know," she said. God, these shoes were killing her. "I s'pose, huh? Hey—I gotta go. Hank just walked in. Talk later, 'kay?"
She tucked her phone into her purse, but instead of going back to Jenna's table, she stood there and watched how her father and her aunt reacted to each other. As soon as Jenna caught sight of Hank, her whole face seemed to light up in a way that Blair hadn't seen for a long time. And when Hank got to her, he bent over and kissed her. Not a long, mushy kiss or anything, but long enough to make some ladies standing close by laugh.
Well. That was that, huh? Blair watched them talking for another couple of seconds, trying to figure out how she felt. All in all, not too bad, she finally decided. It had been fun this past week, being with both of them. And Hank had kept his promise about not shutting Blair out when Jenna was around. It felt, well, a lot like it had when Uncle Phil had been alive, even though Hank was very different from her uncle. And okay, it felt good, seeing Jenna so happy.
Hank spotted her, a broad smile creasing his face as he waved her over.
And Blair felt her own smile in response. And suddenly she couldn't imagine what it would be like, not knowing him. Which meant she also had to admit her aunt had done the right thing, getting them to meet each other.
She clumped over to join them, even letting her father give her a hug. That felt good, too.
Things were happening too quickly for her to be sure of anything. But you know, maybe it was going to be okay.
* * *
All the way back to Haven, Jenna sat there with a goony grin on her face. They'd taken her car, but she was still so jazzed, she gladly turned the wheel over to Hank. But, oh dear God—it was as if the last piece fell into place, getting through that signing. No, not just getting through it, enjoying it. The fear that had shackled her for three years had simply vanished. If she could forge ahead on that front, maybe, just maybe, she was ready to forge ahead on another.
"Somebody sure looks pleased with herself," Hank said beside her, and when she met his gaze, teasing and kind and rock-solid all at once, joy such as she hadn't allowed herself to feel for a long, long time swept through her.
Was she really ready to stop playing it safe?
"I guess I am," she said, grinning, answering both questions at once. Hank reached over and squeezed her hand. And winked. Then he said to the rearview mirror, "Hey, you back there—we were gabbing so much about your aunt's doings today, I plumb forgot to ask you how the sleepover went."
"Okay, I guess," Blair said from the back. "April's brothers came into the kitchen when we were in there trying to make popcorn, but we finally got rid of them. God, they're such losers."
Jenna saw Hank's hand tighten on the steering wheel. "Why? What'd they do?"
"They didn't do anything. They were just acting all stupid and loud and stuff. They think they're cool because they're in high school." She delivered these last two words in a singsong voice. "April thinks they're like total retards."
"Blair!" Jenna said. "You know I don't like that term!"
"I was just repeating what April said, geez. Anyway, Billy, their older brother, came by and took them over to his place for the night. The party would've totally sucked if they'd hung around and bugged us. Why are boys so stupid?"
Hank chuckled. "I seem to remember my mother voicing something similar, many, many times."
When they got back to Haven, Hank stopped by his house to check up on the dog, then drove them back to the cottage. That he hadn't dropped them off and then gone home wasn't lost on Jenna. Or Blair, either, apparently. When Jenna suggested going out for ice cream after they changed, her niece tentatively raised her hand, waggling her fingers. "Actually, Jenna? I'm like, really tired. So I think I'll just go to bed, if that's okay?"
"Oh. Well, sure, honey. But it's barely ten o'clock."
"I know," she said, backing toward her room, her glance ping-ponging between Jenna and Hank. She lifted her hand to cover the world's most unconvincing yawn. "But I feel like I'm about to fall over. So…I guess I'll see you two in the morning, 'kay?"
Between her niece's lack of subtlety and Hank's flummoxed expression as he stared at his daughter's closed door, Jenna decided it was a damn good thing Blair's music went on just then, because there was no way she could stifle her laughter. Hank turned, his expression deadpan.
"Guess she's changed her mind about us," he said, and Jenna nearly choked on the next round of giggles. Or she would have, had Hank not closed the space between them in two slow, lazy, but oh-so-deliberate strides and tugged her body against his. Oh, my. She could definitely get used to this.
"She might come back out," she whispered over the shiver as his mouth began a slow, lazy and oh-so-deliberate assault on her neck.
"I somehow doubt it."
"Yeah," she said on a sigh, her head falling back. "Me, too. Is it my imagination, or do you have a thing for necks?"
"Only this one, sweetheart." He planted his hands right smack on her bum and pulled her closer. "Turkey necks, for instance, don't do a thing for me."
Laughter sputtered from her lips, even as sweet little flames of memory licked at her nerve endings, which were sending up an increasingly loud chorus of oohs and ahhs and moremoremore, nownownow.
"You know, this is really, really fun," she said, "but I need ice cream."
Hank pulled back. Frowned. "What?"
Figuring she'd better take advantage of his momentary distraction while she could, Jenna wriggled out of his arms and zipped toward her bedroom. Her nerve endings were not amused. "I'm still wound from today," she said, then lowered her voice. "And she's not asleep yet. Let me get changed, then why don't we go down to the Git 'n' Go for a snack?"
Judging from the look on Hank's face, you would have thought she'd suggested heading for
the nearest open field to wait for the Mother Ship. "It'll be good, you'll see. Chocolate—" she grinned "—does things to me."
"Then quit your yammerin', woman, and let's get this show on the road."
After changing into shorts and a baggy cotton sweater, Jenna left a note for Blair on the off chance she did emerge from her bedroom before dawn, grabbed her purse, and they took off. The air, moonlight-laced, seemed almost liquid, vermeiling the landscape and kissing her over-sensitized skin as they walked, holding hands like a pair of teenagers, talking softly, laughing. Enjoying each other and the moment.
Halfway there, in the deep, silent cocoon of night and woods and aloneness, Hank hauled her behind a tree and backed her up against it, silencing her laughter with a I-mean-business kiss that turned her on so much she thought she'd pop. And it felt good—no, wonderful—to let herself ache for him, to revel in needing his touch. A whimper of pure delight burbled from her throat when his hand slipped underneath her sweater, his rough fingertips grazing her heated skin, igniting a shower of delicate, delicious sparks in their path.
She felt the button at the waistband of her pants give way, the zipper hissing open a second later. For a moment, she tensed—Right out here in front of God and everybody?—only to immediately go limp with wanting—On second thought, sure, okay, just don't let me fall. He shocked her, thrilled her, by telling her exactly what he was going to do—and how—and all she could do was moan her assent, thinking, oh, glory, the man was good with his hands.
Her cries set dogs off in half the county. Hank seemed inordinately smug.
"Still need that ice cream?" he whispered in her ear, his breath making her shiver all over again. Laughing softly, she let her forehead fall onto his chest.
"More than ever," she said, which earned her a chuckle. She tried to come up with something clever to say as she went about righting her clothing as gracefully as possible, but the best she could manage was, "Wow."
He held her close, stroking her hair. "There are certain things," he murmured, "a man enjoys giving to a woman as often as he can. But not just any woman." His other palm skimmed up and down her back, underneath the sweater. "The right woman."
I love you.
The words flashed inside her head with the oooooh!-provoking brilliance of a fireworks explosion, shattering into a thousand mini IloveyouIloveyouIloveyous sparkling out over the vast, dark wasteland that had been her life. She lifted her fingers to trace his smile, the words' reverberation fading with each passing second she didn't voice them. What she did say was, "Maybe I could stay another week," and his hand stilled on her back. Then he took her by the hand and led her back onto the road.
"Let's get you that ice cream."
Not surprisingly, given the hour, the store was empty. And cold and loud, thanks to equally overenthusiastic air-conditioning and country music coming from a small boombox Angel had set up on the counter. The poor woman, who must have been bored out of her mind, waylaid them for a couple of minutes' worth of gossip, then went back to reading her Soap Opera Digest while Hank trailed Jenna back to the freezer case.
"Hey, they've got Godiva. Amazing," she said, braving the cloud of frost when she opened the case to grab the last carton of chocolate raspberry truffle. Between the sub-arctic temperatures and Hank's proximity, keeping her nipples under control was a lost cause. One which Hank apparently found very entertaining. "Quit staring," she muttered, letting the freezer door fall closed. The bell over the door jingled, barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner and the music.
"But they're so cute," Hank said.
"And you got out of high school when—?"
Her last word was lost in a half squeal as Hank grabbed her and pushed her down behind the canned goods, his finger on his lips.
"Don't move," he mouthed, then pointed to the front. Jenna cautiously glanced up, her stomach flipping at the sight of the big guy in baggy jeans and a ski mask who was pointing a large, rather nasty-looking gun at Angel.
Chapter 15
Oddly enough, her first thought was You have got to be kidding. They were in the middle of nowhere. Since, according to anyone you cared to ask, there was basically no crime, the town's police "force" consisted of three officers, only one of whom was full-time. And it was especially ironic that, despite living in and around D.C. her entire life, she'd never once been mugged or witnessed a robbery. For all the hundreds of thousands of words she'd devoted to Stella Moon's crime-fighting escapades, her real-life experience in such matters was exactly zip.
And she preferred to keep it that way.
"Stay here," Hank whispered, on his feet and out of range before the words Are you nuts? got as far as her lips. Jenna's pulse rocketed into the Red Alert zone when she realized his plans. One look at Angel's terrified expression, though, and Jenna understood, even if sweat pooled in her cleavage as she watched Hank slowly, soundlessly approach the guy from behind.
He's not going to do anything rash. He's a trained professional, not some macho hothead.
Her heart rate shifted down a notch…for about a second and a half, until the part of her brain she'd really rather not hear from right now came back with, Uh-huh, except this isn't a Lethal Weapon movie and Hank's not Mel Gibson and in real life, the good guys don't always win.
Paralyzed, her mouth dry as dust, she watched Hank slowly signal something to Angel, who, bless her, didn't let on. Instead, the woman calmly, if stiffly, went through the motions of cleaning out the cash register—Jenna knew many convenience stores kept the larger bills where they were inaccessible to the clerks, but would they bother in a place like this—?
"What was that?" Obviously jittery, the guy jerked his head toward the door. The gun wavered slightly off target, but only a fraction. Hank stilled behind him, his entire body primed like a stalking lion's.
"Just the wind," Angel answered, her voice higher than usual, but her movements still steady, still calm.
Baggy Pants' head snapped back to Angel and Jenna's stomach lurched right into her throat. "Hurry up, will ya?" he said, gesturing with the gun. "Ain't got all night here."
Jenna saw the flash of irritation in Angel's expression, but the woman kept her mouth shut. Hank took another excruciatingly careful step closer, as if willing his molecules to shift through the air—
She nearly wet her pants when a mammoth, pathetically ugly gray cat with half an ear and one hideous fang popped out of nowhere between Hank and her. It blinked lazily at her for a moment, stretched, yawned…and started for Hank.
Who of course couldn't see it.
In a frantic pantomime, Jenna tried to get the cat's attention, knowing full well it was hard enough to get a cat to come to you when you had something the cat would consider a compelling reason to bother. Instead, all she got for her efforts was a who-let-you-out-of-the-booby-hatch? look before, with a flick of his tail, the thing trotted over to Hank, nearly tripping him by getting between his feet while letting out a rrrr-owwww worthy of a Harley engine.
Things were a blur after that.
Baggy Pants spun around, aiming straight for Hank, now less than five feet away; Angel screamed and ducked and the guy yelled, "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot" just as the freaked cat sprang for his crotch. Jolted out of her stupor, Jenna grabbed a can of something and lobbed it toward the far corner of the store. Glass shattered, the cat flew in the opposite direction and Baggy Pants—by now totally flustered—whipped around again.
Hank seized both the opportunity and the gun in a move so fast Jenna missed half of it and the jerk took off, except then Angel sprang—yes, sprang—from behind the counter and body-slammed him, taking them both down with loud, walrusesque oofs. While Jenna winced, Angel scrambled grotesquely to rearrange her three hundred pounds on the guy's backside, his limbs splayed Wile E. Coyote style underneath her.
When the perp's swearing tapered off to sporadic bursts of labored breathing, Jenna decided it was safe enough to emerge from her hiding place, only to reali
ze everything was shaking—her knees, her stomach, her hands. Clinging to the shelves for support, she made her way to the front, all too aware she was on the verge of hysteria because, after all, she only made up the Stella Moon stuff and this had been real and scary and a whole lot of other things that translated into not fun. Hank was on the phone, presumably to whoever would come take this cretin away, while Angel still sat on the cretin, looking as self-satisfied as Meringue when she'd brought Jenna that headless rodent the other day. The instant Hank spotted Jenna, he waved her over, drawing her into a one-armed embrace while he talked.
The shaking got worse.
Hank hung up and held her by the shoulders, frowning into her eyes. "You okay?"
"Uh-huh."
"You sure?"
"Uh-huh." The frown deepened. She let out a breath, forcing a smile to her dry lips. Behind her, the groaning escalated to cussing. Hank glanced over her head, glowering now.
"Go," she said.
His gaze touched hers, just for a second, before he let her go and ambled over to the squashed would-be robber. His thumbs hooked in his pockets, his measured, booted footsteps resounded against the wooden floor like, well, gunshots over the groaning air conditioner, the deejay's prattling and B.P.'s muffled whimpers. Once there, Hank slowly squatted, shook his head, then yanked off the guy's ski mask with enough force to make his head clunk back down onto the floor.
"I can't…I can't breathe! Get her…off…me!"
"Gee, Billy…you wouldn't be scared now, would you?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Logan—"
"You know, Gundersen, I always suspected you were absent the day they passed out brains, but stupid doesn't even begin to cover this one. What the hell did you think you were doing?"
"But I wasn't…wasn't gonna hurt nobody!" he gasped. "I swear! The gun's fake!"
Hank yanked the kid's T-shirt collar backward, making him choke. "Yeah, I noticed," he said, his voice lethally soft. "After you nearly gave several people coronaries, including me. But, hey, long as the gun's not real—" another jerk on the T-shirt "—it's okay, right? Maybe you were plannin' on giving back the money, too. That what you're gonna tell me, Billy?" He let go of the shirt, only to crouch lower. "I can just imagine how well your mama's gonna take this news. Can't you?"
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